My Take | Give credit to China for containment efforts
- The world would be a saner place if people learn to judge China with more common sense and less ideology
It’s not a narrative the world is used to hearing about China these days. But if the latest fact-finding team from the World Health Organisation is right, China has been doing a decent job of containing the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Led by the Canadian Dr Bruce Aylward, the team of 25 international medical experts spent nine days in the Chinese epicentres of the viral outbreak.
“Just objectively, they’re hitting a level of performance that you just don’t see,” he said in an interview with The Star, the Toronto newspaper. So, no suppressed cases and deliberate under-reporting? It doesn’t appear so, said Aylward, who thinks there is not a large number of undetected cases in the country.
A main reason is that Chinese authorities have committed unprecedented resources and manpower to tracking down anyone who might have been exposed to a carrier.
In Wuhan alone, according to Aylward, more than 1,800 medical teams – with a minimum of five people – trace tens of thousands of sick people each day.